Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

In his celebrated work On the Correct Handling of ContradictionsAmong the People and in other works, Comrade MaoTse-tung, basing himself on the fundamental principles ofMarxism-Leninism and the historical experience of the dictatorshipof the proletariat, gives a comprehensive and systematicanalysis of classes and class struggle in socialist society,and creatively develops the Marxist-Leninist theory of thedictatorship of the proletariat.Comrade Mao Tse-tung examines the objective laws of socialistsociety from the viewpoint of materialist dialectics. Hepoints out that the universal law of the unity and struggle ofopposites operating both in the natural world and in humansociety is applicable to socialist society, too. In socialist society,class contradictions still remain and class struggle doesnot die out after the socialist transformation of the ownershipof the means of production. The struggle between the tworoads of socialism and capitalism runs through the entire stageof socialism. To ensure the success of socialist constructionand to prevent the restoration of capitalism, it is necessary tocarry the socialist revolution through to the end on the political,economic, ideological and cultural fronts. The completevictory of socialism cannot be brought about in one or twogenerations; to resolve this question thoroughly requires fiveor ten generations or even longer.Comrade Mao Tse-tung stresses the fact that two types ofsocial contradictions exist in socialist society, namely, contradictionsamong the people and contradictions between ourselvesand the enemy, and that the former are very numerous.Only by distinguishing between the two types of contradictions,which are different in nature, and by adopting differentmeasures to handle them correctly is it possible to unite thepeople, who constitute more than 90 per cent of the population,defeat their enemies, who constitute only a few per cent,and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.The dictatorship of the proletariat is the basic guarantee forthe consolidation and development of socialism, for the victory426